Wheat Kings
by TarynWanderer
Summary: The prequel to 'You Never Can Tell' - before Sally wakes up.


****

Wheat Kings

A Sonic the Hedgehog Songfic by Taryn "Jnco" Wander'r [tarynw42@hotmail.com][1]

*Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters are owned by Sega/Archie/Dic. "Wheat Kings" by Tragically Hip is on the "Day for Night" album. I mean no infringement in any way, this was written purely for the love of the art. This story is copyright Taryn "Jnco" Wander'r 2000. Feel free to distribute this as long as you a) write and tell me where b) don't change anything in it and c) don't make any money off it, as I'm not.* 

Kay, after writing "You Never Can Tell" I got some people asking for sequels and stuff, and I promise that I will write one, but I rediscovered the Tragically Hip album "Day for Night" while doing chores and fell in love again with the song "Wheat Kings". So instead of a sequel, I wrote a prequel for "You Never Can Tell", called, you guessed it, "Wheat Kings". 

Now, Wheat Kings the song is the true story of a man in Canada who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of prairie teenagers and imprisoned for twenty years before he was found to be innocent. At least, that's how I understand it, from the Hip's excerpts of newspaper columns at the Day for Night site. The line "Wheat kings have all their treasures buried" refers to how the farmers had to bury their own precious children. I thought the song fit the theme quite well. Be sure to tell me what you think! 

This takes place in the moment before Sonic reawakens Sally from her stasis sleep at the end of End Game. There's a lot of exposition, and in the spirit of "You Never Can Tell"- one line of dialogue! Yay! : ) 

WHEAT KINGS 

__

Sundown in the Paris of the prairies   
Wheat kings have all their treasures buried  
And all you hear are the rusty breezes   
Pushing around the weather vane Jesus

Sonic remembered wheat.   
What an odd thought to have at a moment like this. Suddenly an image of himself as a child, standing in a field of wheat with his Uncle, entered his mind.   
What an odd, odd thought. 

Maybe it was because Sally always talked about living in the country. In better times, Mobotropolis was skirted by several farms, the King's farms, which fed his people with bread and vegetables, and made the city wealthy, made it the ruler of the capital. As a child, Sally loved those farms. They had all since long been totalled or polluted into mutation, but someday she longed to return. Someday, when the war was over and the throne was restored to her father and there was peace in the land. Yes, that beloved Someday. The same Someday that would herald the coming of derobiticization and a cure for cancer. 

Someday had come, when Sonic's exploding rage had come barreling out in Robotnik's direction. When the Ultimate Annihilator went off, when nothing was left but death and destruction and a rip in space/time. 

But destruction breeds creation. That's what Sally always said, to keep morale up. And there was always another Someday. Someday, Sally, I'll take you away from here. We'll own a farm in the mainland prairies, and have five, no six, beautiful kids. With hair like hers, the colour of wheat in the sun, and his speed, and her intelligence, and his passion. 

That thought was all that kept him going after he broke out of the shuttle to the Devil's Gulag. When he slept under trees, watched the sun go down, thought of Sally. Mourned for Sally, commiserated. Sonic couldn't even remember any coherent thoughts he had on the whole escapade next to this crazy wheat one. He was just so tired, and angry, and sad and confused. Very confused. 

He stared down at her, unmoving, deathly still in her gilded stasis unit. Pale and beautiful like a pond in the moonlight. Sonic was sad- they couldn't even put a wreath of flowers on her head or a nice gown on her. Was it just him or did not many people in Knothole respect Sally like she was supposed to be respected? 

The speedy blue hedgehog saw his own reflection in the glass of the unit. How poetic- scruffy and dirty, bandaged and tired. She was so peaceful and he was so tormented. How he missed the perfect counter in his life. His buffer. His foil, his grounder. His existence. 

__

  
In his Zippo lighter, he sees the killer's face  
Maybe it's someone standing in a killer's place

They were all so sure. All so certain, so willing to believe what they had seen. His face, his body murdering his only true love.   
It was absurd, obviously, but even the most faithful in Sonic couldn't deny what they saw. Sure, Tails and Rotor had _seen_ him throw his Princess off the building…that didn't mean it happened, right? When you see someone pull their finger off in an illusion, did it really happen? Is television always right? You can't trust your eyes, you can only trust what you know is right. But the people need a scapegoat, and it was easy to just blame who they had visual proof of doing it. 

The worse part of the whole situation was that Sonic didn't even know. Never got to see her. Never got to say goodbye. Never got to see his friends. And he knew, in his heart of hearts, that they would know. One look in his terrified, anguished, tormented eyes and they'd know. Sonic Maurice Hedgehog was a lot of things, but capable of murder he wasn't.   
It had gotten to him, too, the mob mentality. Out in the forest, running, stumbling, he had a thousand little personal crisis. Chaos…what if he did do it? What if something snapped, what if some hidden angst or jealousy came through and made him do it? Everyone saw- just because he couldn't remember…what if the subconscious hate had his body working on autopilot and his conscious wiped that part of his memory out? Or what if Robotnik's pollution had finally mutated him, and the gravitational pulls of Mobius' moons sent him into homicidal mood swings?

After being alone for so long, before Dulcy, before Knuckles, Sonic began to think that maybe it was him. Started to make up false memories of the event in question. Threw himself at the rocky walls of the cliffs and mountains and caves, cut himself as deep as he could with thorns and sharp sticks and stones, tried to brain himself. Passed out in horrible pain. Woke up in worse pain. Still alive. 

He had yelled at the moons in hate that night. Why can't you let me die, he would scream at Fate, Chaos, the Walkers, any deity who was interested enough to listen. She was given release, why can't I? She is my existence, my purpose in life. Why do you deny me the one I love? 

Sonic passed out again, and woke up feeling like crap. He drank some clear water and felt a little better. He thought of her again. Thought of her stormy blue eyes, her wheat coloured hair. And he knew he didn't do it. He never could. He failed in that he didn't save her… but the bowels of Hell couldn't make Sonic do that to Sally. 

__

Twenty years for nothing, well that's nothing new, besides, 

No one's interested in something you didn't do 

Sonic shuddered at the thought of what they were going to do to him. The Devil's Gulag…it terrified him to think of that. Many times in his short journey he was reminded of what he was running from- images of himself, starved, beaten, branded with the mark of the man who's bed he warmed…a hollowed out shell of what he used to be. A nothingth of a being, with no feeling, no emotion, no soul. And not because of his living conditions, or the food or clothing, or even how the others treated him- but because his beloved was dead. And he was not. 

He finally slept peacefully on Dulcy's back, finally secure in his innocence, in his desire to avenge Sally's death. But the anger was still there, to be reawakened by the abuse of Dulcy at Knuckle's hands.   
If there was one thing Sonic was sick of, it was innocent people getting hurt! Nothing pissed him off more. No matter how much Sonic enjoyed his playful fights with Knuckles, the echidna wasn't really a bad guy in Sonic's point of view. But when he attacked Dulcy- Sonic was just sick, and tired, and hurt, and angry, and he just didn't give a damn anymore. He needed someone to blame, he needed to see blood shed, needed to see someone suffer for what had happened to his beloved princess. 

After his innocence had been proven and they freed Knothole from the SWATbots, and a good night's rest coupled with relief and companionship had brought a new light to Sonic's mind, he saw Drago. Saw the fear and the cowardice and the selfishness. And he _knew. _

__

Wheat kings and pretty things,   
let's just see what the morning brings. 

Finally, if only for a brief instant, his rage, which began to boil anew in his blood, this time with a purpose, had a target. The perpetrator had a face. And Sonic ran like he had never run before to wreak vengeance, but wasn't fast enough for Hershey's own brand of vigilante justice. One well-thrown stone and there was plenty of time to figure out what to do with Drago.

Sonic could only watch as Hershey had fallen to the ground, sobbing, guilty, begging for his forgiveness. His fists clenched and he had started to shake, and he somehow managed to stay still and quiet and hear her out. A quality of Sally's that had rubbed off on him. Eventually the rage melted into a quiet, steady stream of passion that made him see the real evil in the scheme, the same evil that had always been there. He had stalked off, quaking with anger, and his life had a new purpose. 

__

There's a dream he dreams where the high school is dead and stark   
It's a museum and we're all locked up in it after dark  
Where the walls are lined all yellow, gray and sinister  
Hung with pictures of our parents' prime ministers

The run to Robotropolis had been a record, even for Sonic. The rusty, polluted industrial wind whistling past his ears, through his quills, didn't drown out his rapid thoughts of vengeance, of promises made.   
When he had been a child, before the full understanding of what had been done to his people, his parents, himself, there was a bit of a crisis in the small school that the children of Knothole spent their days. Little Sonic had held the then-seven years old Sally in his arms while the school burnt down, where Sally had almost gotten trapped. He had made a promise then; one he didn't realize would one day blossom into a lifelong pact of love. He'd promised never to leave her behind. Never to forget her, abandon her. It had been in the schooldays of their childhood, as he zoned out of boring lessons, watching her stare at the picture of her father, the king, which hung on the wall over the door, that love was born. He had loved her long before he knew he loved her, and made another promise to her, now, silently, that if lived through this he'd tell her, in words, wherever she was, how he felt. 

It hit him, as he collided violently with Bunnie and Antoine in the dark corridors of the former palace, that he had already broken the first promise to his beloved. Sonic had left her alone that one horrible night, turned his back.  
But he would not break this one. 

__

Wheat Kings and pretty things,   
wait and see what tomorrow brings.

It was with anger and self-destruction that he stood before Robotnik in person, calling him by his first name, knowing full well the threat of the sabotaged Ultimate Annihilator. Now, in what was quite possibly the final battle of his life, gone were the cocky, self-assured remarks, the smart threats. Only a continuos mantra of "it's not going to happen, it's just not going to happen,". Not this time. He wouldn't fail her this time- Sonic had made a pledge on his heart of hearts and he'd rather die than break it- which might very well happen. A mantra similar to that of "I think I can" or "there is no spoon"- one that took him away from his pursuit of the title 'hero', and into the deep reality of the fight and the cause. To hell with everything else! Knothole, Mobius, whatever good cause that wanted his name loaned to it- what good was it if he had to break his promise to his beloved?   
In the midst of the fight, when time started to rip- things got blurry, felt unreal. Sonic could see himself moving, feel himself dying. But it wasn't going to happen, it just wasn't going to happen. In the final moments, a *WHUMP*, a *THROMB* , a well placed strike to the jaw- then blinding light, and moment of nothingness, peace, purity…   
  
_Late-breaking story on the CBC,  
A nation whispers, "we always knew that he'd go free"  
They add, "you can't be fond of living in the past,  
cause if you are then there's no way that you're gonna last"._

The next thing Sonic remembered was muttering something to himself that probably wasn't important, and hitting the metal floor of the dark palace with a painful thud, knocking him clear out. 

Waking up in Knothole, Rotor's hasty explanations- and still, none of it mattered. Reverberating shock that his friends were all still alive, tearful hugs from Tails and a soft kiss to the boy's head- and Sonic still took on the sleepy, half-lidded expression of one who doesn't care anymore. Not if his Sally was gone.

No matter what- Sonic felt he had still broken his promise and nothing they could say would change that. He had sacrificed a planet for her and it still hadn't worked. 

__

Wheat Kings and pretty things  
let's just see what tomorrow brings

When it was explained to him that she was still alive, the once dead vessel of a young hero was rejuvenated- literally jumping out of bed, ripping IV drips out of his arm with a sickening pop, leaving his images in his wake.   
And now he stood, staring at his reflection and the glare of the dying Mobian sunlight, watching his beloved rest. Light bounced off the glass, into her wheat-coloured hair. 

So here he was. His name was cleared. Innocence proven. The king was alive; the freedom fighters had won. Finally. And Sonic had another promise to uphold. 

Lifting the glass covering, eyes wide open in awe, fear. Tomorrow's another day- and right now he had to start the rest of his life.   
"I love you, Sally," A sweet, chaste kiss on her cheek. A fluttering of beautiful blue eyes- and Sonic was boundlessly happy that he had said it- for all the courage and bravery he had shown in the last few days, he doubted he would ever have the valiancy to utter those words again. 

__

Wheat kings and pretty things,  
that's what tomorrow brings. 

And that's that! Feedback? Write [tarynw42@hotmail.com][1]. 

If you liked it, go check out 'You Never Can Tell' 

If you didn't, constructive criticism is always welcome! 

   [1]: mailto:tarynw42@hotmail.com



End file.
